Nile Gardiner is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator. A former aide to Margaret Thatcher, Gardiner has served as a foreign policy adviser to two US presidential campaigns. He appears frequently on American and British television, including Fox News Channel, BBC, and Fox Business Network.

Cameron US visit: President Obama adds $478,000 to the US national debt with Ohio basketball jaunt

$478,000 – that’s the cost for the use of Air Force One for two 80 minute flights for the US President and the British Prime Minister to Dayton, Ohio, and back to Washington, DC, last night at a cost of $179,750 per flight hour. When you factor in the additional expense of Marine One helicopter flights from the White House to Andrews Air Force base in Maryland, as well as security on the ground in Ohio, White House advance teams, and Air Force cargo planes to carry the presidential motorcade, the total figure is far greater.

In an age of austerity, this is a significant amount of taxpayers’ money to spend on attending a college basketball game between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, especially when tens of millions of Americans are unemployed and facing financial hardship. It is more than eleven times the average annual salary of an American worker, which currently stands at $41,673, and is symbolic of a big government mentality in Washington that has led to the largest budget deficits since World War Two.

The White House will argue that this is money well spent, enhancing ties between the United States and Great Britain, and cementing the relationship between the two leaders. Leaving spin aside, however, the reality is very different. As I’ve noted in earlier pieces, the trip to Ohio looks very much like an election year visit to a crucial swing state, with David Cameron being cynically used as a campaign prop – albeit one whose name recognition in America is still rather limited. Although it is flattering to be flown on Air Force One, the Prime Minister’s advisers should have politely turned down the invitation to travel to Dayton. A far better use of his time would have been meeting with Congressional leaders to exchange ideas on advancing economic growth and cutting government spending on both sides of the Atlantic.

President Obama should be reducing the $15 trillion federal debt, rather than adding to it with blatant electioneering at public expense. It is unfortunate that Mr Cameron has been used in such a partisan fashion by a White House that has cared little for the Special Relationship. Mr Obama has once again demonstrated his contempt for the American taxpayer.

In his Oval Office meeting today with President Obama, perhaps the Prime Minister should give his US counterpart a copy of his timely speech delivered to the Confederation of British Industry last November, where he declared:

I am absolutely clear about the right answer for the UK economy. It can be summed up in one sentence; we need to deal with our debts and go for growth. Those things aren't alternatives, they are essential companions. We will not get one without the other.

… we are recovering from a debt crisis not a traditional recession. People who argue that traditional fiscal stimulus, extra spending funded by even more borrowing, is the right answer are not just wrong – but dangerously wrong.